LA Times: Men get 80% of the jobs Obama recovery created

posted at 1:21 pm on July 16, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

If we experienced a “man-cession” in 2007-2009, we may be experienced a “man-covery” in 2012. However, that’s not good news for women looking to find gainful employment — and it’s not good news for men, either, as the LA Times explained last night:

Since the recession ended in June 2009, men have landed 80% of the 2.6 million net jobs created, including 61% in the last year.

One reason: Male-dominated manufacturing, which experienced sharp layoffs during the recession, has rebounded in recent years, while government, where women hold the majority of jobs, has continued to be hit hard.

But there’s something else at work. Men are grabbing a bigger share of jobs in areas, such as retail sales, that typically have been the province of women, federal data show.

That’s not necessarily good news for women or men. So-called women’s work often pays less and offers skimpier benefits and less opportunity for advancement than the jobs men previously held.

Even those retail jobs will be hard to hold. With retail sales numbers falling, the men who took those jobs may be looking once again for employment soon if retailers expect that the downward trend will continue. That will put more men out on the job lines — again — as they were the most recently hired. It’s also just the percentages, as men now account for a slight majority (51%) of all retail jobs in the US, thanks to their gain of 440,000 retail jobs and the loss of almost 50,000 among women.

Jammie Wearing Fool joked in his post today that this should prompt a federal investigation into gender discrimination in Obamanomics, but that may not be so funny:

The gender gap has raised concerns about possible discrimination in hiring. If the trend persists, it could set back gains made by women in the workplace, experts said.

“It’s hard to know [whether] some employers place a priority on men going back to work,” said Joan Entmacher, vice president for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. Of particular concern, she said: Opportunities for women in higher-paying fields such as manufacturing are shrinking.

We’re already seeing an increase in discrimination complaints, the Times reports — only it’s the men doing the complaining:

In fiscal 2011, more men than women filed complaints of unfair hiring based on gender with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It’s the first time that has happened in at least a decade, possibly reflecting the increased entry by men into women-dominated workplaces.

In other words, this isn’t a “man-covery” at all. It’s a continuation of the same stagnation we’ve seen for the last three years, at the elevated jobless levels locked in by Obama’s economic policies. This should give Mitt Romney a wide opening to talk about outcomes for women in the workplace over the last three years, and steal some of Obama’s gender-gap thunder.

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There is , obviously, SEXISM involved here. This shows how, fundamentally, flawed this nation’s economy is! So, I propose an “Employment Diversity Czar” to ensure that an appropriate number of jobs are filled by men, womyn, persons of colour, and differing sexual orientations….we’ll need some new regulations, fines, and enforcement powers, but Justice and Employment will be established!

And Barky hasn’t created anything. Neither have his policies. If he weren’t around there would be tons more jobs right now and the economy would be chugging along pretty quickly.

Barky and the dems are a huge drag on this nation and the economy. Period. They are the source of this endless recession – as anyone with a brain PREDICTED would happen back in 2008 when it became apparent that AMerica was crazy enough to actually vote the America-hating, Third WOrld, Dog-Eating Retard in. He ran on an anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American agneda and he has delivered.

I am offended by anyone who even entertains the idea that Barky has “created” anything or that we’re in a “recovery” … GREY SHOOTS!!! for the third time, now … It’s beyond asinine.

By LUIS MARTINEZ (@LMartinezABC)
July 16, 2012
An American Navy ship fired on a boat in the Persian Gulf today, killing one person and injuring three others aboard the craft, a U.S. naval official told ABC News.

A spokesperson for the Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is based in nearby Bahrain, said that a security team aboard the oil supply ship U.S.N.S. Rappahannock fired a .50 caliber machine gun at a “small motor vessel after it disregarded warnings and rapidly approached the U.S. ship” off the coast of Jebel Ali, a city approximately 30 miles from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

According to the latest survey from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) hiring over the next six months looks grim.

A NABE Poll Shows Fewer U.S. Companies Planning to Hire
Only 23 percent of the firms polled in June plan to add to staff in the next six months, the National Association for Business Economics said on Monday.

NABE’s prior survey, conducted in late March and early April, had shown 39 percent of companies planning to add workers.

A July 6 Labor Department report, showed companies asked employees to work longer hours last month, even though they slowed the pace of hiring.

Among companies that produce goods rather than provide services, the impact was even greater, with nearly four in five reporting a Europe-driven decline in revenues.

Three months earlier, only about a quarter of total firms polled thought sales had fallen

Lights Out Moment Coming Up

This report is consistent with my report US Manufacturing ISM Contracts for First Time in Three Years; New Orders and Prices Plunge; Perfect Miss: 0 of 70 Economists Polled By Bloomberg Expected Contraction

Hiring plans are also consistent with the Case for US and Global Recession Right Here, Right Now.

All of a sudden, consumers and businesses alike are going to have a “lights out” moment where orders dry up, hiring dries up, and unemployment heads North.

If the NABE poll is correct (and it is certainly consistent with other data), that time has arrived.

This war on women’s jobs issue is something I would ask him about if I attended Obama’s town hall meetings. All of that wonderful infrasturcture spending for construction workers is not helping middle aged women.